Marlene Shalton: Why I couldn’t stick my first advice job

IFP President Marlene Shalton tells Scott Sinclair about financial planning, awkward clients and why she couldn’t stick her first job in advice...

“I was flabbergasted,” Marlene Shalton, financial planner, tells me. “She said my advice was an insult.”

It was 2008, at the height of the market downturn. A client with a “sizeable” portfolio which was appearing to drop in value by the minute had been in to see Shalton for an explanation and to discuss what to do next. He had his wife with him.

“There was no need to panic, I told them, because the decline was only on paper. I said it wasn’t a real loss because that only happens when you realise it by cashing in a portfolio.

“His wife took umbrage. She took it as an insult. Subsequently the family cashed in their investments (and took the loss). It was stupid.”

Shalton, both a certified and chartered financial planner at Bluefin Wealth Management, says only occasionally do clients challenge her recommendations.

“Normally you are able to educate them. People are ruled by their emotions when it comes to money. If the markets are going down, some panic, forgetting everything you’ve told them. Then the market goes up again and they wonder why they’ve got a load of short-dated bonds.”

Award winner

Shalton has been in the industry for more than two decades. After several years working as a probation officer (more on that later), she established a financial planning practice in 1991 before selling to Thinc (now Bluefin) in 2007.

She is a multi-award winner (Shalton was named Best Retirement Planner at the New Breed Adviser Awards 2008 and Best Financial Planner at the same event a year later), works as a mentor to other lifestyle financial planners and, in September last year, was made President of the Institute of Financial Planning (IFP).

It is a far cry from her first foray into financial services, which she did not like one bit.

“I couldn’t believe how unprofessional it was. The company I worked for took on anybody in financial services. If they could breathe, they were in. It sent them on a course and did it all by the numbers. There was a big drop-out rate but, if you passed, you were given an office, thrown the Yellow Pages and told: “Right, get calling.”

“Some of the people the company took on, well, I was just amazed. I was worried that I couldn’t sell, so I asked for help. I was told that, if I needed somebody to sign something, I should tell them to ‘authorise’ it instead, and cover up with another piece of paper what it was they were signing.

“There were all these ploys. I could not do it. Then I listened to a cassette tape (put together by former IFP President – and Shalton’s old mentor – Paul Etheridge) about preparing for your first client meeting. I thought: ‘That is how I want to run my business.’”

Focusing on the person

Today, ‘lifestyle’ financial planner Shalton is very clear about what it is she offers to clients. She claims the job can be clearly-defined from ‘financial adviser’ and even ‘financial planner’, even if some of her peers don’t think so.

“For me, you have advisers from the traditional stable. They sell products first and foremost. So many of today’s IFAs have come from there. Maybe I have.

“Then there are those who say it is not just about flogging products, but about giving clients a service and, essentially, filling the gaps. But they will still fill those gaps – be it protection or IHT planning - with products. Some individuals in this group believe they are financial planners, but actually this represents more of a middle ground. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with this, but there is still more of a focus on the money.

“There is another stage where planners use cashflow modelling. You can not do financial planning without it.

“But then you have the lifestyle financial planner. He or she focuses on the person. Products do enter the conversation, but only at the end. You determine the client’s objectives, gather data, analyse it and then look at where the client is and where they will be if they do nothing.